Arrow S02 E20: "Seeing Red"

One week later from the events of our last episode, Roy has lain comatose in the Arrowcave as Felicity's friends at S.T.A.R. Labs in Central City try to recreate a cure for Mirakuru. Felicity turns her head for a second in the opening, and Roy is up and around, and on the rampage.

This is one of these episodes where the main thrust of the plot is really merely a distraction. Yeah, everything revolves around Roy's rampage, but what it really is is an excuse for little vignettes with other characters. Diggle and Felicity, Diggle and Thea, Thea and her mom, Thea and Sin, Oliver and Sara, it goes on, ultimately ending with Mom telling Oliver she knows he's the Arrow, and has known for a while.

In his rage, Roy takes down Arrow and Canary, just like Deathstroke would have, sans the training - or are the fighting skills inherent to the Mirakuru? And speaking of Slade, where is he? Taking a break while the Roy subplot plays out? In the fight, Arrow's leg takes a beating, making him pretty useless the rest of the episode. It's okay because Roy's rampage was for the most part useless too, he was back in the Arrowcave status quo by the end anyway.

And as long as we're talking about subplots, Flashback Island goes out the window this week in favor of a flashback of a different kind. This one goes back seven years, to the midst of Oliver and Laurel's relationship, when Ollie's extracurricular activities resulted in another girl getting pregnant. Could this be Connor Hawke's mother?

I asked earlier where Slade was. We find out in the final moments of the episode. As Mom, Thea, and Oliver leave a mayoral rally, the car crashes and our hero wakes to find them all tied up, with Slade stalking over them with a gun. He offers Oliver the same choice Ivo offered him on the island - choose who dies. Mom makes the decision for him.

"Seeing Red" was a mediocre episode with excellent character development, and a beautiful terrible pay off. This just goes to show you it is always a bad idea to know a super hero's secret identity, and as far as Roy goes, based on this episode, it doesn't look good for him either.

What was Mom about to tell her children when Slade interrupted them? What friend was Sara going to see? What about Oliver's child who would be about six now? And who was the other person Slade needed to kill? The season is rushing to a close, see you next week.



…and was that Ravager?